Mr. Write (Sweetwater) (40 page)

“Well, well, well,” came a booming voice, trained from years and years of theater productions.  “What
do
we have here?”

She caught a brief expression of frustration before Mason’s face became a polite mask.  And he turned to face the lobby.  “Your brother, I presume?”

Allie wondered what he’d been about to say to her.  But…

“Yes,” she said instead, fro
wning toward the lean, suspicious dark-haired man, who stroked a fake mustache as he lounged near a potted palm.  Apparently he’d been messing around with the costumes.  “Branson Hawbaker.  Bran, meet Mason Armitage.”

“A pleas–” Mason started to say, but Bran dropped his hand and his character simultaneously.

No big surprise, since Mason was gorgeous.

“Oh my
God.” 
It was his gushing, fan-boy mode.  Which
was
surprising, until Bran stuck out his hand.

“Mason Armitage,” he all but drooled as they shook.  “I just
loved
you in
Billy Elliot!”

CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE

SARAH
jumped as sound exploded behind her like a gunshot.

Press
ing her hands over her galloping heart, she whirled to see the sheepish expression on the customer who’d dropped the book.

“Sorry,” the woman said.  “I guess I have too many.  Th
at top one just slid off the stack.”

“You can never have too many,” she recovered quickly en
ough to say.  But there was no getting around the fact that her nerves were frayed.  She felt queasy every time the phone rang, jumped at each creak of a floorboard.  If Jonas’s intent had indeed been to put her on edge, Sarah was forced to admit he’d succeeded.

“Why don’t you let me help you with those?” she suggested smooth
ly, and picked the heavy volume off the floor.  “Ah.  Janson.  Are you studying art history?”

“Sort of.”  The br
unette blew a short lock of shiny hair out of her eyes.  “There’s… this guy.  He’s a professor.  He asked me to a gallery opening, and I was too embarrassed to admit that I barely know a Renoir from a rutabaga.  So I’m cramming.  Plus, if I decide to bring him home, I’ll have these to arrange on the coffee table.”

“Maybe the bookshelf,” Sarah suggested.  “And rough them up a little
, make them look used.  You don’t want to be too obvious.”

“Good idea.”

Amused, she steered her toward the counter, happy with both the sale and the distraction.  While she was ringing her up, Allie sailed in, later than usual as she’d traded time so that Sarah could take off early the day before.  But instead of her usual cheery greeting, she headed straight for the kitchen with something approximating a growl.

“Wa
s that Allison Hawbaker?” the woman said.

“It wa
s,” Sarah agreed easily enough, though she was more cautious now.  “You know Allie?”

“Hmm?” The woman looked up from rooting
her credit card out of her purse.  “Oh.  Not really.  I used to date her brother.  Harlan.  Back in college.  But that was ages ago.  I thought I’d look him up when I moved into the area, but I remembered hearing he’d gotten married.”

“Divorced.”

“Oh?  That’s too bad.  He was always such a doll.  Anyway.”  She signed the slip, took the bag.  “Thanks for the help.”

Thoughtfully, Sarah watched the woman go.  Attractive, Sarah
mused.  Understated.  Seemingly intelligent, even if her knowledge of the art world was a little lacking.  And though she was unquestionably planning to deceive the professor, it wasn’t with the same kind of malicious intent that was Victoria’s stock in trade.

A pity H
arlan hadn’t married her instead.

Wondering what had gotten into Allie, Sarah started toward the back, but Joey Kieffer came t
hrough the door, sporting hollow eyes and baby spit-up on his shoulder. He was clearly desperate for caffeine.

A steady str
eam trickled in after him. Allie came back out with her brown Dust Jacket apron on, served the customers with a smile on her face, so Sarah decided that whatever’d been eating her must not have been that important.

When their UPS guy dropped off a box of books Sarah had been waiting for, she eagerly ripped it open. 
She was stocking them on the shelves when she saw Mason come in.

And the air frosted over.

“Can I help you?” Allie said.

“Allison –”

“Food or beverage,” Allie interrupted.  “Otherwise, I’m not interested in whatever you have to say.” 

Whoa. 
Sarah pushed a couple paperbacks aside, peering through them toward the café.  They faced off across the counter, like two cats ready to spit.  Mason – who on his worst day made Adonis look like a homely relation – actually looked a little haggard.

“Fine.”  His voice was so clipped
that it might have cut glass.  “I’ll have tea, a drop or two of milk.  And five minutes of your time.”

“You’re paying for the tea,” Allie said as she
measured out tea leaves and readied the little pot.  “But my time’s not for sale.”

“Allison, let’s be reasonable.”

“Okay.  I’m reasonably sure you’re a jerk.”

Gaping, Sarah watched as Mason nodded his head. 
“Quite likely. Be that as it may, the fact remains that I was
not
lying to you.”

“Oh, excuse me.”  Allie
fisted her hands on her hips, five feet two inches of attitude. “You were just
acting. 
Which makes sense, since you’re an
actor. 
Which you failed to point out at any time up to and including jumping me in the theater closet.”

What?

“Why are we hiding?” came a familiar voice, and Sarah nearly leapt out of her skin. 
“Shh.” 
She pulled Branson down beside her so that he didn’t give her position away.  This was entirely too good to miss out on.

“Where did you come from?”

“The kitchen.  Had to say hey to Josie first or else she gives me grief.”

Right.  She gestured toward the counter. 
“I believe we have a romantic spat.  Twelve o’clock.”

“Oh, goody,” he whispered back, iced coffee sweet on his breath.  Then: “Oh dear.  Well, I could have told you that
this
little show was in production.”

“You
knew
about this?” She glared at him.

“Honey, I was
there.
Hot and sweaty kiss unraveled by failure to mention career as semi-famous thespian.”

“What?”  Mason was
semi-famous? But then Sarah considered his looks, his presence.  And decided she wasn’t surprised.    

“Hush.  I can’t hear what they’re saying. 
Although he
is
delicious, isn’t he?  Yeow. ”

“Didn’t you just tell me to shut up?”

“Sorry,” he said with a grin, and they squeezed their heads together to spy through the hole.  
 

“– believe me,” Mason was saying.  “What happened in the closet?  That was no act.  I may be able to pull off a very convincing Macbeth, but I’m afraid my penis doesn’t perform on command.”

“There goes that dream,” Bran murmured, and Sarah stifled a laugh. 

“I thought you said a hot and steamy
kiss?”

But Allie was talking again, so Branson slapped a hand over Sarah’s mouth.

“– nice.  That makes it
so
much less humiliating.”

“Humiliating?”  Mason seemed honestly confused.  “Do you have any idea how lo
ng it’s been since I’ve had this kind of genuine reaction to a woman?”

“Genuine?”  Allie shot back.  “So with the other women
in this town who’ve been falling at your feet you were just…let me guess, acting?”

“That’s not what I meant, Allison, and you know it.”

“But see, that’s where you’re wrong.  I
don’t
know what you meant.  Because you let me go on and on – explaining the name of the prop room, for heaven’s sake – without once
stopping me or even cluing me in that, you know, you might be a little familiar.  You were all
I find you interesting
and
do carry on
and the whole time you were probably like
would you listen to this stupid hick.”

Sarah’s heart clutched, because she could hear the tears forming in Allie’s voice.  Mason looked horrified as he said “What?  Allison,
no
.”

“Why are you here?  In Sweetwater?”

“I came along to help Tucker settle in.  He’s had a rough go of it, and –”

“Why else?  Why
else?”
she repeated when he said nothing.  “Could it be because you’re studying up for your new play?  Let’s see if I can remember the description from the article I found online. 
Whistlin’ Dixie is a campy, gothic send-up of all things southern – William Faulkner meets the Dukes of Hazard.
I’m sure, given all the material we’ve given you to work with, you’ll have them rolling – or hey, maybe even shagging – in the aisles.”

“Allison, please.  It’s not like that.”

But Allie was turning away.  “Just… stay away from me.”

She hurried toward the back, and Bran squeezed Sarah’s shoulder.  “Uh-oh,” he said, and Sarah nodded.

“Do you want to smack him, or should I?” 

“
GO
away,” Allie said when Sarah walked into the storeroom.

The fact that there’d been witnesses to her humiliation was a
kick to the ragged scraps of her pride.  “Or else I’ll be forced to shove one of these coffee stirrers through my eye, piercing my brain, and putting myself out of my misery.”

“
Even if I tell you that Mason just slunk out of here with his tail between his legs?”

“Oh. Well. Good
.” Embarrassed, Allie dropped the box of coffee stirrers and sat on the floor.  “Did you know?  That Mason was an actor?  Right” she said when she saw Sarah’s face.  “Of course not.  You would have told me.  Well, obviously he’s quite talented.  And judging from some of the pictures I found online, he’s makes a good living at it, too.  I was worried.  He seemed so uncomfortable about driving my car to the shop, that I was worried he thought I looked down on him in some way for being at loose ends, job wise. That I was a snob.  But there’s this picture?  On one of the gossip sites?  And he’s riding in the back of a limo.  With some model.  A
lingerie
model. I’ve never been so humiliated in my life.”

“You know.” Sarah hitched up the hem of her pretty blue wrap dress, and sat.  “When I found out – from Victoria, I might add – that Tucker was a writer, I felt pretty
dumb, too.  Hear me out.”  She raised a hand to ward off Allie’s scowl.  “But after I listened to him, I understood his position on why he’d acted like a jerk.  Not that I agreed with it, mind you.  But I understood it.”

“You think I should talk to him.”

“It couldn’t hurt.”

“It could if I
beat him over the head with my grandmother’s sterling teapot.”

“Okay. 
Plan B.  How about I sweet talk Josie into baking us a pan of brownies?  We’ll eat ourselves into a chocolate coma and have a down-with-men night.”

Moved, Allie
laid her hand on Sarah’s shoulder.  “That’s so sweet.  But you don’t really want to have a down-with-men night, not when things are going so well with Tucker.  Anybody with eyes can see he’s half-crazy over you.”

“Worried, you mean.”

“Not just worried.  It’s the way he watches you when you walk out of a room.  The way he lights up, just a little, when you walk back in.  It’s… wonderful, Sarah.  I’m so glad for you.”

Sarah pressed a hand into her stomach.  “I’m so in love with him, Al.”

“I know you are.”

“I don’t know how it happened.  One minute we’re arguing with each other over boundary lines, and the next we’ve got our lines all tangled up together.  I…”

“Don’t.”  Leaning forward when Sarah trailed off, Allie took both her hands.  “Don’t start feeling guilty because you’re happy.  You deserve it.  And anyway, I’m not going to break.”  Not again. Not like she had with Wesley.  “If anything, I guess I can thank Mason for getting me… going again.  And for making me realize that I am never going to let another man walk all over me.  Bastards.”

“They really are.
”

Sarah
squeezed her hands.  “Are we good?”

“Better than.” 

Sarah pulled her to her feet.  “Then let’s get back out there before Bran hurts himself with the cappuccino machine.  And I’ll tell you both about a very interesting customer I had this morning.”